Search form

Regional Integration

To what extent does UEMOA encourage trade and financial integration? How do UEMOA countries compare to other sub-Saharan African countries in terms of macroeconomic stability? Has UEMOA’s fixed exchange rate regime impeded competitiveness? And how has UEMOA promoted economic convergence among member countries? Amadou Sy and Mariama Sow provide some answers to these key questions in an article posted on the Brookings blog. Read on

On 11 and 12 March in Bamako, member states of the G5 Sahel (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger) jointly organised with UNDP and Japan, and in partnership with the government of Mali, an international conference on border management and border communities in the Sahel. Read on

An international team of scholars has launched an ambitious new research project on regional integration and international trade in Africa. Based at the Centre for African Studies at the University of Edinburgh, the African Governance and Space (AFRIGOS) programme examines the "respacing" of the continent through the political drive for integration and the reimagining of Africa's engagement with the global economy. Read on

In his blog post, SWAC Secretariat Director Laurent Bossard draws attention to two opposing visions of the African continent: on the one hand, the African Union's administrative organisation is based on the establishment of five major regions within which national borders freely allow production, trade and friendship to flourish between peoples; on the other, development partners and the international community tend to deal with sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa separately. Read on

A new agreement between ECOWAS and a Chinese construction conglomerate aims to advance key infrastructure projects, including the Trans-West African Coastal Highway and the Trans-West African Railway. The ECOWAS Commission signed five memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with CGC Overseas Construction Group (CGCOC) during a ceremony on 20 January in Abuja. Read on